Yesterday the United States of America celebrated its Independence Day commemorating the day the 13 American colonies declared independence from the British empire. The highlight of this holiday is a festive fireworks display celebrated all over the country. Luckily, I live 5 minutes walk to the beach where my home city’s firework showcase was to be held. It being a last minute decision I ended up not finding my tripod and taking the photos handheld. I enjoyed watching the fireworks display and captured a few decent shots. I am posting 16 shots that I personally like and hope you guys like them too. The settings I used were f/16, 4 seconds and ISO100. Happy 4th of July to all!

Today the United States of America is commemorating that fateful day in 1776 when thirteen American colonies adopted the Declaration of Independence and formed this great nation by declaring freedom from the British Empire. Being of Filipino descent, this date is also significant in my home country’s history as this commemorates the day the Philippines ceased to be a US territory and became an independent nation. This year I celebrated the 4th of July at a friends condo where we had an amazing view of the fireworks from his building’s rooftop. As I was taking this photo, I noticed lightning flashing inside this huge dark cloud in the distance creating an interesting backdrop to the fireworks. This photoshoot was a true test of my patience as I wanted to capture the lightning together with the fireworks and it took me 165 shots to finally capture this. While everybody was busy lighting fireworks, nature also joined in and flashed her spectacular version of fireworks display. Happy 4th of July to everyone!!!